Chapter 128: The Three-Headed Hellhound Reappears

Boom!

Yi Tian slammed his fist into the Golden-Armored Snake King. A terrifying burst of Great Sun True Essence erupted, yet it left only a scorched, shallow imprint on the creature's hide.

Suddenly, Yi Tian sensed a sharp whistling sound from behind.

*Whoosh!*

He instantly vanished into thin air, reappearing hundreds of feet away to evade the snake king’s strike. Had he remained, even his protective True Essence would have shattered, and his formidable physical body would have been severely damaged; a lesser human-rank warrior would likely have been pulverized by such a blow.

The scales of the Golden-Armored Snake King were truly impenetrable. Even when Yi Tian and his team channeled their Heavenly Techniques, they could not pierce the armor, forced to rely on sheer concussive force transmitted through the scales to damage its internal organs. Their standard low-grade artifacts were similarly useless against the creature's defenses. Even when amplified by their Heavenly Techniques, the damage was negligible, as the techniques themselves were already on par with such artifacts.

Every member of Yi Tian’s Samsara Squad had mastered these Heavenly Techniques, granting them combat prowess rivaling that of ordinary human-rank experts. Yet, even fighting in unison, they struggled to inflict any significant injury. After battling for half a day, they had managed only a dozen superficial wounds.

Suddenly, Yi Tian reappeared directly above the snake king.

"Break!"

Putting his full strength into the Sun-Shooting Heavenly Technique, he delivered a devastating blow directly onto the snake king’s spine.

*Bang!*

It was like a comet striking the earth; a destructive roar echoed through the cavern. The Golden-Armored Snake King, caught in the midst of fighting Yi Feng and the others, felt its body buckle, nearly driven into the ground by the sheer force. Yi Tian’s strike left a network of cracks across the creature's golden scales.

This single blow consumed one-fortieth of the True Essence stored within his twenty-seven thousand spiritual apertures. It was a massive expenditure; his apertures had trembled violently, reaching their absolute output limit. Any more, and his own meridians risked tearing. After all, executing the Sun-Shooting Heavenly Technique with his physical body alone was far less efficient than using a precious bow, which allowed time to condense True Essence arrows and draw upon the bow’s profound mysteries.

Yet, even without the bow, every strike channeled through the Sun-Shooting Heavenly Technique was horrifying, causing the snake king's golden scales to shatter and bleed. Yi Feng, Yi Li, and the others followed suit, unleashing their own versions of the technique. While they lacked Yi Tian’s mastery, they still achieved seventy to eighty percent of the power.

This was the full might of the six-member Samsara Squad. Under such an onslaught, even a peak intermediate-level ferocious beast would have been crippled.

However, the Golden-Armored Snake King had consumed countless Golden-Armored Fruits, tempering its body into a "Golden-Armored Form." It was unimaginably tough, comparable to a top-tier low-grade artifact. To the snake king, their attacks, while fierce, were merely grazes.

It was terrifying. The creature’s defense was absolute. Perhaps only the peak intermediate-level Wind Profound Turtle could rival such armor, and unlike the turtle, the snake king had no blind spots. If this continued, Yi Tian and his team would exhaust themselves long before they could kill it. They would eventually be overwhelmed and slaughtered. Even with their ability to walk on air, they could not outrun a creature capable of riding clouds and mist; if they scattered to flee, casualties would be inevitable.

Facing this stalemate, Yi Tian found himself in a dilemma. Finally, as he clashed with the snake king once more, he abruptly shifted his consciousness into his Star Mud clone.

In the boundless, dark void, the astral radiance of the Three-Headed Demonic Dog flared, illuminating the emptiness. The next moment, a monstrous, thirty-foot-long Three-Headed Demonic Dog appeared beside Yi Tian. Swirling with black mist, an aura of boundless, terrifying pressure descended upon the underground snake lair.

Countless golden snakes shivered and collapsed to the ground, frozen in terror. Even the cold, icy eyes of the Golden-Armored Snake King were filled with shock and primal fear. Although Yi Feng and the others had seen this beast before, the sight remained profoundly chilling. It felt like a supreme god-demon, its凶威 (ferocious majesty) vast enough to shatter the void and destroy the heavens.

As the Star Mud clone transformed into the Three-Headed Demonic Dog, Yi Tian felt an infinite well of power surge within him. The very laws of heaven and earth seemed fragile, and the profound mysteries of the universe became transparent to his perception, an endless stream of information flooding his mind.

Yi Tian quickly suppressed these insights. Every moment in this form, he felt vast amounts of energy vanishing into thin air just to maintain the beast’s manifestation. Given the nature of the black Star Mud, it contained immense energy, but the origin of the Three-Headed Demonic Dog was too profound; the cost of sustaining its true form was agonizing. If the Star Mud took other forms, the energy drain was minimal or non-existent until it performed a specific action.

He did not hesitate. As the Three-Headed Demonic Dog, he commanded the left head—the Head of Devouring—to roar and lunge at the snake king below.

A terrifying suction force erupted from the maw, instantly enveloping the fifty-foot-long Golden-Armored Snake King. The force dragged the serpent into the beast’s gaping throat, shrinking it rapidly until it was swallowed whole.

The next moment, the Three-Headed Demonic Dog vanished.

Yi Tian’s consciousness returned to his original body; the Star Mud clone had already shrunk into a ring on his finger. From the moment he transformed to the moment the snake king was killed, only two breaths of time had passed.

As he returned, he realized the energy cost of the transformation was negligible; the energy gained from devouring the snake king had almost entirely replenished the loss. It had been a nearly effortless execution, relying on the sheer surprise and speed of the transformation.

The Samsara Squad stood in stunned silence. The captain’s methods were simply too formidable. They knew better than anyone how monstrous the snake king was; the six of them combined had battled it for half a day without inflicting a single serious wound. Yet, with the snake king gone without a trace, they let out a collective sigh of relief—they had been terrified.

With the snake king dead, the frenzy in the lair began to subside. Without their master’s presence, the golden snakes grew restless. Attracted by the scent of the ripe Golden-Armored Fruits, they began to fight amongst themselves in a chaotic, bloody scramble. Thousands of snakes vied for every piece of fruit.

Yi Tian, Yi Feng, and the others would not let the remaining fruits be devoured by the snakes. They unleashed their full strength. Yi Tian moved from place to place, crushing snakes and seizing fruit after fruit.

After a frenzy of plunder, the team secured over a hundred more Golden-Armored Fruits. By the time the fruits were either harvested or consumed, the snakes’ mania had completely faded.

Exhausted from the relentless fighting, the team finally retreated through a tunnel, emerging from the underground cavern into the outside world.

Their haul was immense. By a rough estimate, they had gathered at least six thousand Golden-Armored Fruits.